Nutrient-based dietary patterns and prostate cancer risk: A case-control study from Italy

Purpose: The role of various foods and nutrients, and their combinations, on prostate cancer risk remains largely undefined. We addressed therefore the issue of complex dietary patterns. Methods: We analyzed data from an Italian case-control study, including 1,294 men with prostate cancer and 1,451 hospital controls. We carried out an exploratory principal component factor analysis on 28 selected nutrients in order to identify dietary patterns. We estimated odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding confidence intervals (CIs) using logistic regression models on quintiles of factor scores, adjusting for major confounding variables. Results: We identified five dietary patterns, labeled "Animal Products," "Vitamins and Fiber," "Starch-rich," "Vegetable Unsaturated Fatty Acids (VUFA)," and "Animal Unsaturated Fatty Acids (AUFA)." We found positive associations between prostate cancer and "Animal Products" (OR for the highest vs. the lowest score quintile: 1.51, 95 % CI 1.16-1.96), "Starch-rich" (OR 1.50, 95 % CI 1.16 1.93), and "AUFA" (OR 1.32, 95 % CI 1.02-1.70) patterns. No significant associations emerged with "Vitamins and Fiber" (OR 0.93) and "VUFA" (OR 1.16) patterns. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a diet rich in animal products, including several types of meat and dairy products, as well as of (refined) cereals and sugars has an unfavorable role on prostate cancer.